sf litcrawl

neha, grant and i did the last leg of the litcrawl (like a pub crawl, but you go to bars where people are reading books!) organized by the litquake conference. we heard a lot of interesting excerpts from books by some bay area authors, and some more worldly authors. one i particularly remember is a reading of a graphic novel. for those of you not in the know, a graphic novel is essentially a comic book dealing with more adultish issues (that's a big generalization, and what does adultish mean, but let's go with that).

anyway, at this bar there were 4 readers, each representing a character in the graphic novel. the novel was about the immediate after-effects of the dropping of an atomic bomb in japan. a couple's house was on fire, and their children were hurt. the couple was trying to decide whether to wait or stay with a trapped child. one of the characters, the mother i think, was acted-out really well by the reader -- she was super-engaged, and bawling and screaming. very convincing. the father, on the other hand, sounded straight out of a dubbed chinese movie. i remember he said "you fool" a few times to the mother, and his words were so stilted and monotone: "you" .. "fool" ... anyway i couldn't help laughing out loud, and i got some looks from the audience members.. very insensitve, i.